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It depends on your target market. Imagine having an online graphic design - art direction - video/audio production site that looks like garbage on a Mac. People in the above industries use Macs! It's an extremely prominent platform in graphics (PRINT).--Creative industries. --also copywriters and journalists dig 'em.

I WANT to believe more than 1% of people work in a creative industry!! Is it really THAT rare?? Can't be.
At my work there isn't 1 PC in the joint!! (yes I complain)

If a Power Mac wasn't so darned expensive, I'd pick one up!! That and a silver-finish 19" Sony Trinitron! (flatscreen)

--
Back to reality

Here's a question:Are Macs really better for graphics?? I've read that the colors are more acurate on-screen with a Mac. I doubt they are faster than PCs for the same price!
Give me some FACTS. (I'm considering getting a Mac to hang out with my PC)

You know what, if you make websites that are reasonably standards compatible, they work fine on my mac and probably everyone elses mac. I can't see why it's the same thing as catering to v3 browsers. I very rarely come across a website that looks dreadful so it can't be that hard.

I must have been misunderstood somewhere. Or maybe it's my being french in an all english environment that sometimes makes me say things I don't mean.

I was just trying to establish a comparison. Let me explain in different terms.

About three years ago we decided the standards for resolution design was not 640x480 anymore, it was now 800x600. Why? because everybody was getting new computers and new computers came with a 15' or even 17 inch monitors and 800x600 was now possibly settable. A lot of people with windows 98 had it set by default and still they wondered how things had gotten smaller on their screen.

You know what the real reason was according to the researches and studies we had made? It was because less than 20% were set in 600x640.

Less than 20%. And we moved on.

I'm not saying we should kill all non-compliant browser users. I'm not even saying we should nuke all MAC users. I'm only saying that at one point or another, the world has to move on. I have trouble with the idea that 95% of Web users worldwide will be penalized because of 5% of irreducible users still stuck with obselete browsers or 1 or 2% of marginal MAC users.

Is marginal okay? Can I have that term? I am upsetting anone?

So, this is it. I am totally pro Web Standards. I think we have to move on. I make it my responsability as someone who builds it on a daily basis to make things move. I want my Web to be dynamic, actual and forwards compatible. Not the other way around.

Now I agree that some sites can't afford to take the plunge. Sites that do ebusiness won't want to lose a single sale. I understand that. It's not even their battle. It is our battle. Us the advisors up to which the project managers turn. Us who have our hands in Web oil every day.

I think the main reason we're not moving on just yet is that we're not ready yet. Web standards aren't easy to implement. The concepts are simple, but the application is far less simple.

Hell, even the W3C can't figure it all just yet! How could we do it?

I just thik we have to pack our things, get our act together and move on. And think of this :

How many people will access the Web on a cellphone, just as of next year. 10%? 20% 50%? Who knows.

Take that percentage. This is how many people will say ecommerce sites suck because they can't access it at all. An increasing % of their potential sales will go up in smoke because they didn't want to jeopardize 5% (which will keep on diminishing) of users. That's one hell of a good marketing plan.

Personnaly I am preparing for the world to move on. And I would recommend you do it too, if only you still want to work and still be reputed in this field in a year or two from now.

Peace my friends.

P.S. : There is a big difference I'd like to point out between MACs and v4- browers users.

MAC users are part of a culture. This is the sole reason why they have to be respected as a minority. Older browser users are just irreducibles. They slow the Web developements and as such are a nuisance. That's my word.

hehehe

I can see where this is leading....LOL

Mund send me a url, we use ALL MACS for our web design at work. But we test on the ol' PC

Oh and BTW Tahoma isn't a Mac font, it looks real cool on PC's but defaults to Times on a MAC. Stick to Verdana as suggested above. Nice and legible on all platforms. Maybe use Arial size 1 for real small text if u need to.

I have trouble with the idea that 95% of Web users worldwide will be penalized because of 5% of irreducible users still stuck with obselete browsers or 1 or 2% of marginal MAC users.

but you don't have to penalize the 95% to make a Mac compatible site. You just have to carry on making well designed sites that work in IE5 or NS6 on a PC like you do already I'm the last person to say you should block out the vast majority of your users because I won't even have anything to do with NS4.7 and I would be being hypocritical

But I don't block MAC users quite the opposite. Which is why i added the line on MAC culture. I'm just saying that if for some reason something that was standard-compliant wasn't working on the MAC i would not bother and keep going that's all.

For the information of any new readers, I had to consider Macs specifically because the pages we are constructing were intended to be viewed by the staff of an art and design department. The pages will be written to a CD using the ISO9660 format and with fingers tightly crossed (it's less than a week to delivery day and the artist - my son - is still producing).

I have a pet Mac user who will help us test that the CD is readable, but he uses the AOL browser, so that could be even more fun.

You guys are argueing the same point from different sources of information. I would say "theCounter.com" is pretty relable they seem to claim that they get a good sample of the net usage. And by the numbers that they state it seems so, but I would like to see a list of the sites that they poll. Is there a common focus that would be predominatly a PC field? Say if all the stats were coming from VB sites, I don't know of anyone programing VB on a Macintosh ( just and example).

What is probably happening is that "theCounter" is getting stats from all over the world. There is a thread here at Sitepoint about how priacy is huge in Asia and other countries. I am wondering how much of this software is Macintosh. I have personally searched for Macintosh cracks in the past, and came up with nothening, My point is that why would someone buy a computer that they have to pay an arm and leg for the software, when they can buy a cheaper computer and borrow the software from their neighbor? Espacally in the poor countries. Also I wonder how much of Apples sales goes overseas.

The 6% could represent the amount of people that use Macintoshes in the US. Also keep in mind That this is ONLY web usage, this does not mean that there are Universities that don't have labs full of Macintoshes that are not hooked to the Internet( not to intelligent in my mind, but you would be surprised the stuiped things Universities do, and they claim to be a fountain of higher education!).